Dr. Weevil says he's tired of seeing the same old contemptible lies being repeated about the U.S. and the U.K.'s efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Arguments that have been demolished rise up and must be answered again and again and again, because no canonical answers to these spurious accusations exists.
I'm sure some of you are familiar with the litany: "Only poor ghetto kids are fighting over there," "America was convinced to go to war with Iraq based on the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction," "America only goes to war against People of Color," and so on. Weevil's tired of explaining, again and again, why these claims are bogus. So am I.
A FAQ should be developed, which can be referred to by those who want to debunk these tiresome, spurious claims. I would happily contribute to such a project, but I just don't have the energy to spearhead the effort. I would, on the other hand, be happy to provide input and resources, such as mailing lists and web space, to help make it happen.
Such a project would require a small group of leaders--two or three people at most I would think--to guide contributors. To be clear, this could not be a "democratic" effort: someone would have to be in charge of determining what makes sense vs. what does not, what's merely partisan point-scoring vs. what are legitimately fair answers to spurious accusations.
Anyone interested in working on such a project? There's no money involved, just the chance to say you helped make it happen.
I'm interested.
Nah.
SpinSanity.com has already been there and done that.
Check it out.
I'll check it out, Ara. Thanks. But I don't think it's a want of information that's driving these people.
While such an effort may be worthwhile - especially as a guide for younger folks new to the issues - they will do nothing for the vast majority of the people making these claims.
The "Bush lied" and "America is racist" crowds are simply grabbing for power. They see it as being in their interest to discredit America, Bush, Capitalism, etc. because they grow stronger to the degree these entities grow weaker. Truth simply isn't important in this context.
Precisely. Why bother? These people will find the truth or they won't. If there was a line, I'd bet on "won't."
Doesn't mean you kids shouldn't continue to smack them down everytime you've got the opportunity.
I'd be happy to help.
I can take the "US gave Iraq permission to invade Kuwait" claim.
I'd *love* to have a well-referenced and footnoted FAQ on the matters at hand.
I suspect it would be quite popular in the blogosphere.
That one may not be the slam-dunk it sounds like it should be.
I remember reading an account of Ambassador Glaspie's conversation with Saddam:
If that wasn't "gave permission" it was so close that any distinction is without a difference.
And the reason for the FAQ shows up right here on the thread proposing the FAQ....
Mariner - oh, puhleese! First off, its not up to the US to give a lunatic permission to do anything. As soon as the Iran/Iraq cease-fire came into effect and it was noted that Saddam owed Kuwait $10 billion, it became obvious that Saddam would invade; the problem was that the first Bush Administration wasn't really good at understanding the way lunatic dictators work. Sure, we should have said "invade and we'll kill you", but if you look at the people in that Administration you can see that there wasn't a lot of "kill" in it.
Anyways, I'm also interested; and can be contacted at markedwardnoonan1964@yahoo.com; my specialty is the actual military aspects of the war (ie, I can answer the oft-made claim that 'X' is another Vietnam); I've also got a good handle on the why of bin Laden, Saddam, Arafat - meaning, I understand why they are what they are and do what they do...and its got nothing to do with being affronted by American diplomatic blunders and/or military actions.
Mark,
Puhleeze, yourself.
You're of course correct that it isn't up to the U.S. to "give permission" for an invasion.
What our government did (if the account of the Saddam/Glaspie meeting is accurate) is note that Saddam was positioning forces in the south (where they could be used to invade Kuwait), and then tell him that whatever happened between Arabs was between Arabs.
Your position is exactly the distinction without a difference that I mentioned.
Ara Rubyan:
I see very little overlap between my idea and what Spinsanity does. Even if there were quite a lot, so what? The Myelin Ecosystem and N.Z. Bear's and Popdex and Blogdex all overlap in functionality, and no one has suggested shutting any of them down.
What I have in mind is:
1. Not words versus words like Spinsanity, but words versus facts. This may seem an artificial distinction, but this is more important:
2. Not a blog, with the newest stuff up front, but a hierarchical, subject-arranged site whose front page would not scroll away, though it would expand as topics were added. There might be a blog attached to announce important additions, appeal for information, and so on, but the main thing would be the collection of linked mini-essays.
The front page would list various broad topics, e.g. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Guantanamo. Each would have subtopics, I estimate something between 50 and 100 all together. Examples of common myths would be:
1. "Those poor prisoners are being kept in cages at Guantanamo Bay." Not any more: they built a regular prison for them and moved them into it long ago. Even when they lived in the so-called cages, they had more square feet, better ventilation, and better food than the soldiers who guarded them.
2. "The U.S. has no right to treat prisoners of war that way." Donald Sensing has shown that there is good reason to distinguish "unlawful combatants" from ordinary prisoners of war. In this case, I can at least remember who made the argument, but it still takes a while to find it.
3. "Bush only invaded Afghanistan to help his friends make money by building a pipeline." I've read a devastating refutation of the Ted Rall argument on one of the blogs on my blogroll, but can't for the life of me remember which one. The point of the site would be not to have to spend half an hour with Google whenever someone dredges up the same old argument again.
4. "The poor Afghans are worse off than they were before we invaded." I've answered this one in at least four different comment sections. In some ways, yes, they are. In a huge number of ways, no. (Link to pictures of Afghans flying kites and such for the first time in years. Quote the recent USA Today article that reveals that the Taliban even banned family picnics.) Examples can be piled up on both sides, but there's a clincher: something like 2,000,000 Afghan refugees have returned home in the last year and a half, and they ought to know. Afghanistan is certainly still in bad shape, but it must be getting at least a little bit better.
5. Just to show that not all myths are leftie myths, "Germany / Norway / Turkey is our enemy in the war on terror." In fact, all three have done a great deal of (a) police work at home, and (b) military work in Afghanistan. Whether their good works outweigh their active obstruction of the liberation of Iraq can be argued, but they have (unlike Russia and China) done quite a lot. One thing I want to include is a lot of facts and figures. How many of each of these are serving or have served, how many have been killed (4 Canadians, 2 Germans, and no Norwegians, I believe), what they're doing, and so on.
As I said, I'm tired of making these arguments over and over again. Many of them have already been made better by others anyway. A site that organized and linked the arguments would be very useful.
Brian, Mark, and Scott:
Sure, most people are either already convinced or unconvincible. But even if only 10% of the population falls in between, that's tens of millions of people.
Dean:
I'll email you with some more worked-out preliminary ideas and questions about how hosting could most easily be arranged.
Everyone but Dean:
Patience! I'll post more as soon as my ideas have crystalized, which may take a few days.
"If that wasn't "gave permission" it was so close that any distinction is without a difference"
- - -Sorry, old chap, but that's just not the case.
You've read a comment by Glaspie, taken completely out of context, and assumed it related to your assumptions.
I'll give the short answer:
1: During the conversation, and throughout, Saddam *repeatedly* assured Glaspie that he was seeking "bilateral negotiations", while "respecting the rights of both states".
He assured her that they were going to deal with it through the Arab League.
He was *not* indicating war.
2: The context of the cited quote was in regards to a VERY narrow area....a border dispute.
And what she said was true, in that context.
We really did take no position on their border dispute.
It should be pointed out that Saddam had a legitimate beef with Kuwait.....but annexing the country over it, is like burning down your bank, because they overcharged you for a transaction.
3: In interviews, since, Tariq Aziz has made it clear that they never asked permission, nor did they ever think that Glaspie had given it.
In fact, Aziz said they were certain that the US *would* attack....but they felt they had to do it anyway.
Which just about puts a hole in that meme.
Unless, of course, you can come up with a better source than Aziz.
That's the short version. Hope it helped.
Jon
Oh...another interesting aspect to that Saddam/Glaspie interview.
In it, he made a specific terrorist threat against the United States.
He said that, if the United States applied pressure, Iraq would respond. They could not do so with missiles, but "an individual arab could get through".
And 12 years of sanctions and inspections is nothing, if not pressure.
That's the only direct threat I've seen or read that he made.
Interesting, though.
Agreed, Jon.
Also, that wouldn't have been the first time that Iraq had brought troops up to the border of Kuwait, then backed off.
But I will agree that the US flubbed the dialog with Hussein, in a lower-level sort of way. The powers-that-be read the indicators wrong. Not the first time it happened, and certainly not the last.
I think it's pretty obvious that the folks who get excited over things like this have a weak grasp of intelligence analysis. It's hard enough to guess what England or France is up to. Russia is much harder, and Iraq (say) is worse than any European country in that respect.
Maybe they've watched too many bad adventure movies where all the "good guys" intel is 100% spot-on... :)
Lt. Smash has recently made some very cogent comments on this topic on his blog. Dean has him linked if you've never been there. Recommended.
Thanks.....I'll check him out immediately.
Quick note:
"The powers-that-be read the indicators wrong. "
- - -Perhaps, if one assumes they should have been psychic.
Iraq did not make the decision to invade until after the Glaspie interview, so Glaspie could not have known that was their intention.
Jon
Mariner,
The problem with your take on it is that you criticise based at least in part on information available only after the fact. Churchill considered this to be unfair criticism...in his many historical works he pointed out that if he criticises a decision, he only did so if the information to make the correct decision was available prior to the incorrect decision being made. Taking a look at the entire Saddam/Kuwait picture in hindsight, it was blindingly obvious that we should have pre-committed ourselves to the specific territorial defense of Kuwait; but even that might not have worked. You see, for the Saddam's of the world, the US was then (and still is in some cases today) considered a paper tiger - the murder of our Marines in Lebanon was highly instructive to the Arab world: Kill Americans, and Americans might make some noise and drop some bombs, but they wont really do anything about it. Even a specific warning would only have had a chance at thwarting Saddam.
The critics of US policy frequently remind me of people who expect everything to be perfect. Our policy makers are human - they are going to make mistakes, sometimes wonderfully stupid ones. Little ol' me sitting at my desk in 1989 figured Kuwait was on the Iraqi hit list, the United States government with the resources of the DIA, CIA, State Department and excellent Presidential advisors missed the coming threat entirely. Why? Because people don't like to envision a war coming - and politicians are even more unlikely to envision a war than regular folks for the simple reason that war is nasty and risky and difficult to buy votes with. Me, I'm steeped in military history - I can see a war coming a mile away (or, in the case of Gulf War One, about 10 months in advance). I'm sure there were a lot of bright people in government who sent up memos pointing out precisely what sort of person Saddam was and what he was very likely to actually do - on the other hand, there were memos from equally bright people who opined that Saddam was rational and only really wanted to renegotiate his debts with the Kuwaitis. You're President - pick which one is right, beforehand.
Dr. Weevil,
Knock yourself out.
I'd absolutely love to sink my teeth into a FAQ project.
I suppos on e of the firsty steps is for a regular reader of some sources of such nonsense to start getting an actual feeling for the frequency of some of the most egregious asshattedness.
That being said, as Dean mentioned there are some very good explanation extant for some of these. Others I would be quite happy to work on, just say the word.
AR